From WXXI news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is being made at the University of Rochester, where graduate workers have been considering an option to strike.

Hundreds of graduate workers are ready to picket if the university delays signing an agreement that would allow graduate workers to form a union, according to some of the leaders of the proposed union.

Roughly 1700 graduate workers across all three U of our campuses earn as little as $15,000 per year, according to their press release from earlier this week.

The workers are also citing health insurance and, as they put it, a lack of support for international students and insufficient protections against discrimination and harassment.

For years, we've seen similar movements on campuses across the country.

Sometimes universities remain silent on the matter on other occasions.

Institutions have argued that essentially these workers receive both typical pay and the path to a PhD or other credential, and that holds significant value.

The National Labor Relations Board has sided with graduate workers, including in a case from last summer.

The NLRB findings state that receiving academic credit for work performed does not preclude a finding that students are employees are under the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Act, and if students are employees, they have to be paid not just with academic credit.

But now there are already signals that the new Trump administration could reverse that finding just 24 hours ago.

Here's how USA today reported a significant change under the new white House quote.

The National Labor Relations Board acting general counsel rescinded a memorandum issued by his Biden administration predecessor that said they viewed college athletes as employees.

Now, this is college athletes as employees of their schools under the National Labor Relations Act.

And, quote, I spoke with two Rochester based employment law attorneys this morning, both said that we are now in a time of extreme uncertainty.

One said that before long, there might not even be an NLRB.

And at minimum, they view protections for graduate workers to be on shaky ground given some of the early Trump decisions.

Here's how The Hill characterizes changes in the new Trump administration to labor law.

Quote.

Acting general Counsel William Cohen's memo erases the last four years of NLRB governance under his predecessor.

This includes reversing the board's hugely popular decision to ban employee non-compete agreements, limiting the monetary damages available to the victims of unfair labor and workplace practices, and making it tougher for unions to gain official recognition, end quote.

The Hill goes on to say that the changes coming from the new NLRB seem particularly designed to please Trump allies like Jeff Bezos, and the era of union busting is returning.

Which brings us back to the University of Rochester.

The university declined to comment or join today's conversation.

This hour, we're going to talk to graduate workers about what they want and why.

Let me welcome them now in studio with me.

Katie Gregory is a graduate worker and PhD candidate in earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester.

Welcome.

Thank you for being with us.

Thank you.

Evan.

Claire Becker is a graduate worker and PhD candidate in history at the University of Rochester.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

And welcome to her.

Aren't you a Ahuja, who is a graduate worker and PhD candidate in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having us.

I'm going to just start by asking and I'll go around the table.

I'll start with Katie.

Let the community know where things stand on this.

So what is perhaps imminent or being considered and and then we're we're going to spend the hour talking about about why and especially with the backdrop of some of what we're seeing nationally.

But take us through what's going on today, Thursday.

What's going on?

Sure.

Yeah.

So, we're here right on the heels of a large demonstration that we did on Tuesday evening, in which we did announce our intention to strike.

If we didn't reach a deal with the university, that would allow us a pathway to form our union.

a little bit of background is that in, December, at the end of a year of negotiating, back and forth with the university, we had come to a agreement that we thought was final on both sides.

We agreed to their terms, in mid-December.

And then, you know, holidays happen and of the year happens.

But, we did not hear back in the timeline that we were expecting to hear back.

and it was about two days before the inauguration, that we did get a response from them in which they basically asked for an indefinite amount of time to review an agreement that they had basically proposed to us that we had agreed to.

and since that time, we've been basically just trying to demonstrate how much support we have and encourage them to come back to the table, finalize this agreement, and get things going, because we do have the intention of getting our union this semester and holding an election by April of this year.

And you would strike starting when it's undetermined.

At this time.

We need to assess our we've we just announced on Tuesday.

So at this point we're you know building confidence within getting spreading the message amongst our supporters.

We do have a vast amount of support.

But, people come to this with different ideas of what a strike is, what a strike look like, looks like.

So we're basically mapping that out right now.

But we have not announced or come to a conclusion about when that may happen.

Claire, anything that we're missing there.

something that I would add is, right now we are circulating a strike pledge that is the first of multiple steps towards, Well, we have the strike pledge, and then we will vote to strike.

And then once we have the vote, the OCA or the union organizing committee, which all of us are a part of, then we will have the power to call a strike if we deem it necessary.

So really, what it is, is like multiple levels building up to a strike.

And at all of them, the university has an exit route where they could come to the table with us and, yeah, agree to sign the agreement and let us move forward and form our union.

And, Clare, do you agree with Katie's assessment that essentially what the university is asking you to do is given an indefinite suspension to the consideration of a deal that they themselves proposed?

Yes, I do.

I think that's exactly what's happening.

it felt like a true 180 because for the last nine months, they had been coming to the table with us more or less, and negotiating.

And, then, like Katie said, just a few days after the Trump inauguration, they totally, flip sides in the way I see it, it's, it's sort of in alignment with this administration's, lower support for unions than the previous Biden administration.

And the university sort of knows that they have more power now.

So they're flexing their muscles.

So I mentioned some of those developments in the introduction and I want to be clear, I mean, things are moving very quickly.

Employment law attorneys who I talked to this morning were saying, give us a month to try to get our heads around everything, and there's a lot of change.

but you seem to be saying clear that in your view, the university might be seeing that as an opening to say, you know, we don't have to do that deal.

Yeah.

Or we maybe never wanted to do it anyways.

And now we have, more reason to not move forward with it.

More federal support, or at least an environment that has a different disposition to unionizing.

Yes.

and again, that's supposition.

I don't have the university here.

I want to say again, I respect the U of R, and we talk to them on a million different occasions on this program.

I'm sure that'll continue.

These negotiations are always sensitive, but they've chosen not to be here today, so be easier if they were here.

Yes, but.

Or if we could read their minds.

but yeah, they're very radio silence have not communicated with.

Well, I mean, you shouldn't grad students come up with a way to do that?

I mean, you guys are very smart.

I'm.

Oh, we've suggested multiple follow.

No, I mean, I need to read their minds, right?

To read their minds.

Yeah.

The meeting part.

I'm sure you're actually trying to do, I'm no historian.

You can work on that.

Yeah, the brain stuff.

Imagine.

What are we missing here?

I think it is especially important to remark what the impact on the international student community is when we see the university now realigning their, previous words towards now, the Trump administration.

and it is, extremely disheartening, to see that the university has been just radio silent, on any of the issues, regarding, Trump's executive orders and how that might impact international students.

Okay.

So and again, I want to say this conversation has come together pretty late in the process.

We appreciate everyone being involved with that.

Who is here today?

the university did not have anyone available.

I don't know if they did that they would be here.

They have not been talking this week that we've seen coverage on other outlets, but that is certainly an invitation we will continue to extend to the leadership at the University of Rochester, if they choose to do that.

And let me try to at least amount you let me follow that point here and at least try to to represent what I think they might say, or at least what an observer might wonder, which is this?

Instead of saying, yeah, well, the University of Rochester saw the new Trump administration and they're going to be pretty anti-union, and they didn't have to do a deal, and they're just taking advantage of that.

I think some people might say that that's cynical.

What what's actually happening is we are at a time where we're going to see funding cut to institute.

We're already seeing it to higher ed, to all kinds of different programs, to research institutions.

And maybe the University of Rochester just wants to kind of get the full landscape of things before finalizing any long term agreements, because everybody is rocked by big changes that are coming from Washington.

I agree that there are like these are tumultuous times, and we are seeing things in terms of higher education that we haven't seen before.

It is extremely important to see, though, that graduate students are not a priority in any of these discussions.

And this is not the first time that that has happened.

and this vulnerability, just extends furthermore to international students.

and I just think that, if the university really, really cared about, the graduate workers and international students who are working tirelessly, to keep the research going even with this landscape, we should be on the table, and we are not.

Okay.

And, Claire, what would you say to that?

The argument that the university is in a hard spot because higher right across the country is understanding that funding can get cut for any number of reasons.

Research institutions, and they're not really feeling like we can make any, any big plans right now.

What do you think I would say?

it it does seem likely that the university is in a hard spot, but graduates are in an even harder spot.

Sarah Mangal staff, I think, is going to be fine with her salary.

but the rest of us depend on these funding sources that are getting cut.

Like a lot of people, especially in the sciences, rely on funding from the NIH and other government institutions.

And without that, we're feeling more precarity and vulnerability ever in our positions.

And we see this as a time that instead of standing against us, the U of our could stand with grad students and try to sort of protect us and support us through these political changes.

Katie, you want to add to that?

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with what my colleagues have said.

I would also add that they've had ample opportunity to communicate such, you know, upheaval to us.

if if they said, hey, you know what?

We are drowning in all of these executive orders, like you were saying, the, people you talked to you earlier this morning, like they wish they had a month to catch up with things.

that was not what was communicated to us.

It has not been communicated to us.

They refused to take our meetings, and, I think it's hard for us to find, you know, certain sympathy in that way of when they're blocking any.

True, option for communication, that we just have to, you know, we are going based on our own assumptions here, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I want to say to the audience here, whether you're listening on Sky or Finger Lakes Public Radio, iOS 89, five FM, or watching on the, the Sky news YouTube channel, or listening on the mobile app, we're going to have conversations very soon about a lot of these sort of individual splinter issues.

non-compete is a big one, and we've seen a lot of movement and direction of getting rid of non-compete in recent years, and that could pretty quickly be reversing student athletes, as I mentioned.

You know, that's a so there's a lot to cover.

We're we're sticking with this subject this hour.

But if you have feedback as our guests talk about their positions in these negotiations, I think you need two parties to negotiate.

But whatever or whatever you want to call it, it's, 844295 talk.

If you want to call the program toll free.

8442958255263 WXXI.

If you're calling from Rochester.

2639994, you can email the program connections at skywalk.

I should say similarly, we're going to talk to higher ed institutions about research institutions, about what it is that is changing, whether it is, research funding, different streams of funding, threats, etc.

there's a lot happening right now.

So we'll take some of your feedback in just a second here.

One other point on this is I just want to make sure that our guests explain a little bit about what it is they're asking for.

I don't know that the university thinks that what you're asking for is unreasonable.

Again, I don't want to infer anything, but you all clearly feel like what you're asking for is reasonable.

So what is it that you want?

I'll start with you kidding?

Yeah.

I think actually, if we could even take a step back from that.

I think it's important.

Before we talk about what we want, to talk about, who we are and what we do.

Because I think there's a lot of misconception amongst, like the broader Rochester community when they hear, okay, grad students are looking to organize, form a union.

a lot of people have the idea of like college kids, kids ages 18 to 22 taking classes.

that might be their perspective of what a student looks like.

I just want to be clear that PhD students, we are working full time.

we are a lot of us are starting in our, you know, working the majority of our 20s, ending working 5 to 6 years.

I will hopefully be done, at age 30. but there's not accounting for all of the people who come in as later in life learners.

We have people that come in as parents with families.

and the things that we're doing, the services we're providing for the university include teaching, you know, mentorship.

We're running, labs in the Stem fields.

We're running writing workshops, and we're also providing research.

You mentioned, like, the wonderful reputation that the university has as an R1 research institution.

we are arguably the backbone, and we're also helping pull in funding.

so that's a little bit about who we are and what we do.

Also important to say to and Manchus point that about half of us, half of all grads are, international students.

and the things that we're asking for are to be compensated fairly.

basically, none of us make a living wage for the city of Rochester.

a lot of people make far, far below it.

so wages are one.

But beyond that, including protections for international students, health care, in addition to what we have negotiated up until this point in time, and ultimately this, this seat at the table that's been echoed amongst everyone here.

it's important for us to have a say.

And like you're saying, especially when we have, we don't know what the future holds, especially maybe over the next four years.

and rather be just, bottom of the totem pole.

Reactionary.

we would hope to be proactive and be able to be up there, representing ourselves to the university and getting our voices heard in terms of pay.

Your release earlier this week mentioned that some graduate workers get paid as little as $15,000.

Correct.

What is there an average that graduate worker pay?

We've done that analysis.

I don't know if we have it for the current year, but it did seem like mid to upper 20s.

Okay.

and that is it's important to note that that is pre taxed, we are paid in stipends and it's not necessarily the same as like W-2 wages that a lot of people are familiar with.

Okay.

So if you want to go from mid to upper 20s on an average, what should be the baseline living wage in Rochester is 44,000.

So 44 at a minimum.

No one is making that right now okay so far is that but is that what you're asking for at a minimum 44 or is it higher?

We haven't agreed upon.

like that would be something that we're we're looking right now to just get straight up recognition as our union.

Once we have a union establish, we would go into negotiating a contract and things like that would be taken up.

we did have an effort a couple of years ago, prior to this, former, to this formal union push, in which we were asking for, I believe at the time, something like 40, 36 to 40,000. and, you know, times are changing, inflation builds.

So we are not we don't have a set number at this time, but we would like to get a lot closer to the living wage.

And this is, like this is a democratic process.

So students who are part of the union will decide, what their work is worth for.

And, of course, the university will negotiate with us when we come to that.

When you say protections for international students, what do you mean specifically?

So to the like, I would refer to what some of the protections that Syracuse University won in their graduate student union.

one of them is paying for a service fee.

So whenever an international student comes, to the United States, they have to pay a certain amount of money to register themselves as, F-1 student F-1 is the visa status that they get when they come to study here.

the second thing that they, set aside a fund for at Syracuse University after they won their union, was to get paid time for people, for students who get who are in like, involved in some sort of immigration proceedings.

And this is just the monetary aspects of it.

there are aspects of it which, legal, union can provide legal support to students who find themselves in some sort of a fix, with their administrative needs or with their professors.

And lastly, it is also about the community that the union has filled, which was lacking since after Covid within the university.

the current temperature or the current feeling among the PhD students is to keep their head down, get their PhD and get out.

And that is not what nurtures a space where PhD students feel comfortable doing the best research they can.

And the union basically felt that gap.

And it is continuing to fail.

So as we gain more and more support, and I think people will be wondering, because there have been unionization efforts at campuses across the country in recent years, are there campuses where grad students, grad workers are making 45, 50, 60?

The answer is yes, right?

Absolutely yes.

A lot of it is, of course, based on cost of living.

Like, I don't think it's fair for us to sit here and maybe reference something like, you know, Columbia, or California, right?

Institutions.

Right.

In some of these major, major metropolitan areas.

but we have done actually analysis to try to do some, referencing to universities that are in around the same living wage in Rochester.

Okay.

so 40 4k in Rochester, again.

And that's, that's one part of the ask here.

It's money.

It's not.

The only thing is they've been explaining, but what you're asking for is not unheard of elsewhere is the point.

Yeah.

And if anyone's wondering, also that number that we're coming to is based on the MIT living wage calculator for Rochester.

All right, let me get some phone calls.

Tom in Rochester first.

Hi, Tom.

Go ahead.

Yeah, that's.

Are you there?

Tom, listen through your phone, not the radio.

Tom is late because he's.

Listen on the radio.

I'll come back to you.

Tom.

Maggie in Rochester next.

Hi, Maggie.

Go ahead.

Hey, first and foremost, I want to say thank you so much to the graduate students that are engaging in this campaign, especially the international students.

They're taking a really huge risk to try to improve not only their working conditions, but working conditions for everyone in Rochester.

UVA is the biggest employer in the Rochester metro area, and they are sort of the standard bearer for how employment relations are going to go under the Trump administration.

If they are allowed to not sign their own agreement and to sort of voluntarily acquiesce to these threats that are coming in about funding and about erosions to the NLRB, that's going to have an impact on every worker.

Hang on one second, honey, and every worker in this city, as you can hear, I'm a mom.

I'm also a graduate worker.

I started grad school when I had a nine year old daughter and eight month old twins, and as a parent of four, I'm still finishing my graduate degree at 40, right?

So I'm a homeowner.

These are not kids that are they're, living on their parents money and having fun.

These are adult workers without whom these universities can not function.

There are so many classes taught by graduate workers at these universities that when our undergrads leave and go to get letters of recommendation and they are told you have to get one from a tenured professor, they can't find one to write for them because so many of their classes were taught by Tas.

Right?

So our entire economy, so much of that is anchored in the Uber and Uber cannot function without these workers.

And they're trying to, treat them as though they are expendable children when they're absolutely not.

So this fight is a fight that these, workers are taking for themselves, but they're also taking it for all of us.

And I am profoundly grateful for the work that they're doing.

Maggie, thank you for the phone call.

Anything that the workers here want to add to that?

I just want a round of applause for Maggie here, mama, for finishing out her degree.

Thank you so much for your comments.

That was wonderful to hear.

We're glad to be here.

Talking about it.

let me get back to your phone calls here.

Thank you.

Maggie.

Chad in Cayuga.

Hey, Chad.

Go ahead.

Hey.

Thank you very much.

I'm curious about the economics of grad students that they have to pay tuition.

I've got a couple of grad degrees, and I had to pay tuition for those.

Is that still true or not?

hang there for one second, Chad.

So we've had a couple of emails to this effect as well, and the emails sound kind of like Chad's question, which is if you're a grad worker and say you're teaching a class, does that mean that your tuition goes down or are you paying tuition?

You get an academic credit.

How does it work?

It it varies.

I think a little bit on a case to case basis.

Many of us do get tuition waivers, but that can change depending on whether you have external funding.

I know an international student who has a grant from her home country to be here, and because they are paying for her school, she does pay tuition.

that's not everybody's case.

Would you to add anything to that?

I think I understand the reasoning for this question, which is people are trying to say, you know, we're that's how we are compensated, right?

We're getting.

Yeah, getting.

I would like to point out, though, that, we never actually see that money.

And for example, I, I haven't taken classes.

I'm a senior PhD candidate.

I have not taken classes for a number of years now.

and they are not they are no longer paying tuition or when the tuition that they're paying is just on paper and it's a transfer of one from one U of our account to another U of our account, I never actually benefit from that tuition, aside from I.

And that's not to say that I didn't vastly benefit from it.

In my first two years while I was taking classes.

But right now, I do think it's important that, is it is it fair to say for those of us who are in years, you know, two through six, that, we're we're being fairly compensated when we're taking home maybe $30,000 a year pretax.

Yeah.

And so, Chad, before I come back to you, let me try, because I don't have the University of Rochester here represented, on their side of this.

We're talking to a graduate workers at the University of Rochester who are considering striking after getting, kind of radio silence.

No, no response.

And their words from the university about, their desire to see graduate workers compensated more fairly, international changes to some international worker protections, health care, etc..

So if the university says, okay, look, part of your point there is that as a graduate worker progresses, they may take fewer classes or no classes.

Your first couple of years, you said you took classes, as a graduate worker, but now not so much.

So they might say, well, okay, but those first two years, you know, you're getting compensated in the same way that if if I said, here's a free car, someone say, well, that's a pretty good piece of compensation, even though you never had to pay for it and you never had money in your pocket to go pay for it, it's still compensation.

Should that factor in?

Should, should, should the university factor in and say, hey, Katie is not taking classes now that's different.

But you're one in year two.

You should have been paid less because part of the compensation should have been academic credit.

Yes or no.

to be frank, I was paid less.

okay.

Okay.

I've gotten I've gotten slight raises over the years.

and I would also like to say that, you know, our skill levels are also vastly increasing in that time.

So being compensated less now, let's say, because I'm no longer getting that tuition, compensation, when I'm now a master's degree holder and a very highly skilled worker.

I just I don't know if maybe they're like, I, I think that maybe we should be being compensated more later in our year.

So maybe a it might even out a little bit.

But if anyone else wants to weigh in, I will add definitely something to this.

I think, it will probably get into the weeds a little, but I think it's really important to know that that where the money is going and, where like, who is benefiting from these classes and how much, when a student in rolls and of course, an undergraduate course, they pay $1,600 per credit if you do napkin math, for 20 students in a class for a four credit course, that amounts to around $100,000.

graduate students who are teaching the entirety of that course make around $2,000 for that entire semester by teaching that entire course.

And that is, what, 0.5% of that total course.

The point here is that if the higher ed costs are going up and up and more and more, where do the graduate students ever see the benefit of that large chunk going towards them?

And I think that is not the case.

So yeah, something that I would like to add to is that more I mean, this this is about numbers.

If I could share a little bit of my personal story, I in the history department, our baseline pay is about $24,000.

that has not changed since 2004.

I teach two classes right now.

I teach the 2004 mentor.

Yeah, I don't quote me on that exact year, but it is that roughly 20 years.

Yeah, okay.

It's been a long time.

Okay.

And, above that, like I'm spending time outside of teaching, preparing for my class, meeting with students and office hours.

and the university at this moment does not consider that work.

I'm an independent contractor.

We all are.

None of us are considered workers.

or like, essentially what I'm trying to say is that we are doing all of this important work for the university.

As H.A.

and Katie have said, and working many people above 40 hours a week, even when they have children and working jobs, in addition to trying to finish their degrees and the university is essentially saying to us, you're not a worker, you don't have the right to unionize.

So I think, it's both about pay and about our rights.

Okay.

Fair enough.

And, let me just ask Chad if he wants to jump in and I'll come back to your other phone calls.

We get a lot of phone calls.

You guys have inspired a lot of talk today on this, Claire, if the university said, okay, your point on poverty level, I think you said 44,000 in the city of Rochester based on the numbers we have.

Right.

So, and I that's I guess what I don't want to miss phrase it.

Living wage 44,000.

When you said $44,000 in the city of Rochester would be enough to get to a level of a living wage or outside of the poverty line.

What was the.

It's based on cost of living, but we don't have to hang on that number.

Okay?

I know, I'm just like, I'm playing a negotiation here.

So if the university comes in and says, okay, we're going to pay graduate workers 40 4k unless you are taking classes, and then it'll be 35, then it'll be 30, then it'll be 36.

Whatever.

44 will be the baseline anybody's taking getting academic credits.

Still, we're going to count that as part of compensation.

That's what we'll do.

What would you say to that, Claire?

I would say these are all specifics that we aren't getting into yet, because the university hasn't even agreed to come to the table and negotiate with us.

These are all things that we would deal with when we have a contract and when we have a sign, an agreement.

In that regard, you are much better than the university that you come here and do.

The negotiations, which I would love if they would have this conversation.

I'm just trying to imagine what it might sound like in that room.

But part of our what our guest is saying is they would like to be in that room too.

So, okay, let me get back to chat.

Anything.

I missed their chat before I go to other callers.

Well, no, it's just the idea that it private universities, typically the tuition these days is 60 to $70,000 a year.

And if they are gaining credits but not having to pay tuition, shouldn't that be taken into account in terms of the value of what's going on?

I think I think they've addressed that as best they can, and their view is they could negotiate for it.

But a lot of graduate workers end up in a situation like Katie or others who, you know, after a year or two, you're not actually taking classes.

So the vast majority of that of us, that's the case.

Okay.

So that's why they're making the argument.

They are charged.

but as for the rest of it, I guess they'd say they'd negotiated if there was the table to negotiate that.

So, thank you.

Chad.

let me see if we get Tom again here.

Tommy there.

But, can you hear me?

I can go ahead.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So I've been teaching at the university for 40 years, and I have, a long memory then, of how things used to be, above and beyond the kind of wages and conditions, the usual, union issues, which I believe they are workers and have every right to pursue.

I think they are also doing a public service right now.

I think that, democratic elections for union organizing are a basis to democracy in any advanced economy, like our own.

And we are under this assault now from the new, administration in Washington that is trying to destroy all independent organizations.

there is an attack on the research university and on the nonprofit research done by the NSA, funded by the NSF and the NIH.

and, you know, political theorists have have argued for a long time that, without the existence of robust civil society institutions that are independent of both the state, but are above the level of the individual, democracies don't survive.

So I hope to see a resurgence in union organizing throughout the economy.

but particularly at research universities where research in the public interest on issues like infectious diseases and cancer and things like this, are not necessarily profitable for private corporations to do the research on.

And most, research does have a basis in publicly funded research.

And these are the workers who are doing that work.

I would also like to point out that, the way universities are currently set up, there is a tendency to perpetuate the class system that depending on the income of your parents, you enter graduate school with more or less student debt.

and so they, they're paying that off as well as trying to live on whatever they're being paid now.

And when they finish their PhD, most will face years of working as adjunct instructors or contract faculty, before they can, a lucky few will on a tenure track job.

So if we can't support students who are taking a huge sacrifice to the income they could be earning in the private sector, we're destroying the future of our own economy.

And I think that it's in the interest of every member of our society to weigh in to pressure places like the university, which are nonprofit institutions that do not pay taxes.

And so they have responsibilities to the community more generally.

depression them to just let the students have a Democratic vote and not to kind of preemptively submit to the executive orders coming out of Washington.

and that's all I got to say.

Tom, thank you for the phone call.

Anything our guests want to add?

We have three graduate workers from the University of Rochester in studio.

And I think anybody wants to add there.

Have you been hearing from professors like that?

Do you feel support on campus?

Yeah, faculty have been very supportive and I would say that was well put.

Thank you for calling in, Tom.

Thanks for that.

I'm late for our only break.

I will say to Tom's point, Tom hopes to see more union organizing across sectors in this economy going forward, and the likely outcome of at least policy is going to make that harder.

One example is, as was reported yesterday, the new NLRB under the Trump administration has already moved to roll back some of the limitations on what companies can do when workers want to organize.

One example is look at Starbucks.

You look at Amazon.

It was a pretty common tactic to organize meetings where they'll play videos, or they'll have seminars on why it's a bad idea to form a union.

And under the Biden administration, the NLRB said, that's union busting.

You cannot do that.

that's over the line.

That's prohibited.

Already, the Trump administration has said that's going to be allowed again.

So there will be more pressure on workers, and there will be more conditions that make it harder.

Not easier, at least for the next four years.

That doesn't mean it's impossible, I don't think, but it definitely means it's going to be harder.

And that's why we are going to be talking about this across sectors.

So Tom, thank you for that phone call.

Let's get this only break of the hour.

We'll come right back with Katie Gregory, Clare Becker, H.A., who are graduate workers at the University of Rochester.

Coming up in our second hour, the state of New York has an ambitious plan to cut child poverty.

But maybe it feels like you've heard this before.

Child poverty is way too high in the state, fourth highest in the country.

And now we're going to get specific what's the plan going forward?

What's actually going to help families who are struggling with poverty?

What's going to help parents?

What will help children?

We'll talk about it next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Great Thai Consulting, providing management consulting services to help support not for profit organizations.

Services include C-suite staffing support, executive coaching, and business and fund development.

More at Great Thai consulting.com.

On the next fresh air, Rich Benjamin, whose maternal grandfather was president of Haiti in 1957 but after 19 days was overthrown by a military coup.

We'll talk about getting classified documents showing America's role in the coup.

And you hear about Benjamin's experiences as a black, gay, Haitian American who came out during the Aids epidemic.

Join us.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our guest this hour are three graduate workers at the University of Rochester.

You might have seen coverage this week of their situation.

They are talking about striking.

They want the chance to form a union, and they want to negotiate with the University of Rochester for higher pay and better benefits for graduate workers.

And we're talking 1700, roughly, workers at the University of Rochester.

they feel that the university, well, that their description is that those negotiations have essentially stopped entirely and that there is no back and forth happening anymore.

we have invited the University of Rochester to join us.

They did not have a ton of time today.

I'm not doing any PR for anybody.

I'm just telling you this conversation came together a little later in our process, the normal.

And they did not have anyone available.

they haven't commented on the record that I've seen this week, but they are invited to do that if they want to come talk about this issue when it is convenient for them.

So in the meantime, a number before I get back to phone calls, number of listeners are asking.

Katie, you mentioned the health benefits and listeners want to know, do graduate workers get health benefits to begin with?

so actually, as a result of earlier advocacy, again, before we were formally, pushing for a union, I was part of the grad student leadership from basically a in my entire time at the U of R. so the like advocacy body that was, grad student government and we, based on, large survey and data that we presented to them.

at the time, some departments were paying for health care costs.

The costs of, student insurance was about $3,000 at the time, out of pocket for students.

So if it was not being covered, for a lot of them, it was over.

You know, 10% of your pay.

For a lot of people, it was over 10%.

and we basically went to them and said, hey, this is inequitable.

and at the time, we were also asking for things like an increase in wages, like increase in weight raises that were commensurate with inflation.

and they kind of picked one of the three bullet points that we presented to them and said, okay, your health care coverage for everybody now will be covered.

but that really that is only, you know, health insurance.

It doesn't include, your eyes or your mouth in terms of vision and dental.

and.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll leave it there.

Okay.

So that answers some of that.

Jennifer in Honeoye Falls had called in to say that their daughter received her PhD from Washington University.

and her daughter was paid $31,000 a year for that.

She had to work every day.

She had many, many hours a day.

She thought the situation was disgraceful.

She is, I think, rooting on the guests who are with us in studio.

let me also, I'm just trying to follow here a lot of phone calls today.

Michael in Rochester.

Hi, Michael.

Go ahead.

Hi.

thanks for having me on.

I am also a faculty member at the U of R. been here since 1985.

I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in the early 80s.

And Wisconsin at that time had a graduate student union, which was created in 1970.

And I know I was very grateful for it because, among other things, that meant that I got the same health insurance plan in the early 80s as faculty had their, in my own department of computer science.

Graduate students are absolutely crucial to our research program and secondarily to our teaching.

they're much more important to teaching in certain other departments at the university.

they're supported, in our case through a mix of grant money.

university funds and fellowships.

There's a lot of variation across fields.

I happen to think the graduate students in my own department are very well treated.

they receive a full tuition waiver if they're in the doctoral program.

And a substantial discount in the master's program.

And just worth noting that grad education isn't all classes.

I spend many more hours per week in one on one meetings with doctoral students than I do in the classroom.

And those students, are getting a lot of educational benefit even the more senior years of their program.

our stipend, which is, for half time work, is in the high 30s.

plus health insurance.

Our surveys indicate that we are among the top ten in our field, in the country, in stipend level.

But that is just our department.

Speaking personally, I am a very strong supporter of the right of graduate students to make their own decisions about all of this and to organize to strike if they choose.

Unions are just a way to balance power.

The university has enormous power.

Employers in general have enormous power in unions.

Help to even the playing field a bit.

there are some mixed opinions among faculty at the U of R, but there's definitely people like me who support the right to unionize.

We're absolutely committed to protecting student organize ERS, and especially international students from retaliation of any kind.

that retaliation, of course, is not only, immoral, but also illegal.

And, you know, the university at least officially recognizes that.

I'm not sure how important it is to figure out why the university might be dragging its feet.

I think it's more important simply to apply pressure and let the process move forward.

Well, I appreciate the phone call.

Michael, again, anything our guests in studio want to add to that?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Katie.

thank you also, Michael, for calling in and all of the faculty that have showed up for us on this program today.

We are immensely grateful for that.

I think I wanted to bring it back a little bit to some of the things that we're talking about that are we've talked a lot about numbers today.

but, aside from some of this wage and compensation talk, part of what it also means to be this quasi student employee position of what it is to be in a PhD program.

there are, you know, student handbooks and there are some policies in place within the university.

But as non employees, we don't have access to a little thing called H.R..

So a lot of what goes on, in terms of how we're treated is left up to our individual, supervisor or our mentor, in our research or teaching.

and what that means, is that it's up to those individuals to make decisions about, things like, and I'll tell a bit of a personal story here.

I did lose, I did lose both of my parents last year.

my mom passed in June, and while my father was already, in a long term hospitalization, and he, passed in August, about two months later.

and so last summer was a complete upheaval for me.

and when I was dealing with having to be at the hospital a lot, in active grief and all of those things, I looked into some of the options available to me, and there is a formal, policy for a leave of absence.

But what that would mean is an entire cut off of my, my income.

And I don't know if anyone can afford to just not be paid for a month or two.

and my advisor, thankfully, who, is a very compassionate person, was gracious enough to continue paying me while I was coming in and out on any given day, and not able to provide the hours that I typically would have been.

but that said, we had a colleague from the psych department speak at our rally on Tuesday.

while we were outside in the freezing, freezing cold.

And she shared a personal anecdote along the same lines, which is that when her mother passed a couple of years ago, she was given the option to either take the leave of absence again, sever herself from her pay, or return to teaching.

I believe it was about three days later.

and they she was told.

Nope.

You cannot provide your teaching assistant services, remotely.

You have to be here in person to do this work for us.

Or you take this option, and don't get paid.

And my understanding is that, in many, many workplaces, that would have been handled quite differently.

Well, I'm going to try to fit in as much feedback as we can before the end of this hour.

We have a lot.

Soames is next on the phone.

Hi.

So let's go ahead.

Hi.

can you hear me?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Great.

I just wanted to say I'm calling in.

I'm an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester.

So different from graduate students, as they've explained.

so I'm just a student full time.

and I just wanted to call in and say that, at least in my experience, I think that myself.

Definitely.

And my classmates are ready to support you all grad students.

And whatever shape this union push ends up taking.

whether that's a strike, which is.

But it's looking like it's possible right now.

I'm sure that we're ready to support you, including and, like, walking out and not going to our classes if need be.

so that we don't break the picket line.

because I think, as others have said, without graduate students and researchers and instructors and lab leaders, the undergraduate experience at U of R would be materially worse.

and so, like as undergrads, we work a lot alongside or under graduate students, and I think they really just deserve to be treated as humans.

like, I was just like people should be able to go and grieve without worrying about losing everything.

but yeah, I just want to call in and say, like, I think myself and my classmates are down to support you in whatever way is possible.

And if you need anything else, just ask us.

We're here.

Yeah.

Thanks for that phone call.

I want to clarify again.

Our guests have been saying that there's not a date yet set for a strike.

There's nothing is imminent.

It is an option they are considering.

But I don't want people leaving this conversation thinking it's this weekend or it's Monday.

there's still some steps before that point for everyone.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Okay.

but some.

Thank you for that.

that context from an undergrad student.

Let me get George, who I think is a grad student.

Hi, George.

Go ahead.

Hey.

Yeah, I am a grad student.

I am also involved with this same campaign, but, yeah, I just wanted to speak a little bit to what the administration I'm backing away from this agreement signals.

I consider it, a failure of leadership.

And to me, what it communicates, whether we think it's backing away or stalling or whatever, it's telling us that they will not be advocates for us and that they will not be advocates for us.

You know, kind of in the shadow of the Trump administration that they're willing to, sort of give a green light to all sorts of these all these policies, you know, coming from the executive branch now.

And, you know, we're not really actually asking them to advocate for us.

Exactly.

We're asking them to, you know, to stand by their prior statements that they believe we have a right to do this and to basically get out of our way and let us advocate for ourselves.

Well, let me just jump in just because I appreciate the call.

We're going to lose the hour here, and I want our guests, and I'm sure they appreciate your call there as well.

is there something that could move this forward productively?

Let's close with that idea here.

Is there something that could happen next that would start to improve this relationship and put you on a different path?

I think if the university steps up and B comes to the negotiation table and signs the agreement that they agreed upon in December, that moves the process forward, and we can have a peaceful, union election this semester.

No strike necessary.

While we are ready, if need be.

But no strike necessary in that case.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's where things stand here.

and I want to just invite a future conversation.

Yes.

University of Rochester.

To be fair, of course.

They're invited here.

And I hope that, in the future, with a little more time and notice for everybody, we could all sit down together and do this.

You're all welcome to do it right here in the studio, if you want.

I know it's been tough to find time to or to to hear back, but that's an open invitation.

So I want to thank our guests for being here, telling their story.

And you're up to date listeners on what's going on with the situation with graduate workers at the University of Rochester.

Katie Gregory, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Claire Becker, nice talking to you.

Thanks for having us.

And thanks to him.

I sure huge thanks for being here as well.

Thank you so much.

More connections coming up in a moment.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.

Org.